The Senate vote on the health care bill has been pushed back, but it still has a lot of people in the nursing home industry worried. About two-thirds of nursing home residents are paid for by Medicaid. And the Congressional Budget Office found that the Senate health care bill would cut Medicaid by more than $770 billion over the next decade.

As Americans continue to live longer, their chance of developing diseases like dementia and Alzheimer's increases. And family members are often assuming the unpaid role of caregiver, resulting in reduced wages and Social Security benefits.

The federal government has announced a new rule that guarantees the rights of patients and families to sue long-term care facilities.

The rule, released Wednesday by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, bans so-called pre-dispute binding arbitration clauses in nursing home contracts, which require patients and families to settle any dispute over care in arbitration, rather than through the court system.

The rule applies to facilities that receive money from Medicare or Medicaid — which is nearly all of them.

Hebrew HealthCare, which runs a nursing home, hospital and a wide range of care services in the greater Hartford area, announced it will lease out its flagship facility and restructure the rest of its operations under Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Connecticut still ranks high among states in the use of antipsychotic drugs for elderly nursing home residents, but its rate of use has dropped 33 percent since 2011 -- a bigger decline than the national average -- new government data show.